Masovian dialect

The Masovian dialect (Polish: dialekt mazowiecki), also written Mazovian, is the dialect of Polish spoken in Mazovia and historically related regions, in northeastern Poland. It is the most distinct of the Polish dialects and the most expansive.

Mazovian dialects may exhibit such features as mazurzenie, sandhi (intervocalic voicing of obstruents on word boundaries), and asynchronous palatal pronunciation of labial consonants (so-called softening). The Kurpie region has some of the most distinctive phonetic features due to isolation. Characteristics include:

• Depalatalization of velars before /ɛ/ and palatalization of velars before historical /ɛ̃/; e.g. standard Polish rękę, nogę ('arm', 'leg', in the accusative case) is rendered [ˈrɛŋkʲɛ], [ˈnɔɡʲɛ] respectively instead of [ˈrɛŋkɛ], [ˈnɔɡɛ];
• /li/ sequences realized [lɪ] instead of [lʲi];
• merger of the retroflex series sz, ż, cz, dż into the alveolar s, z, c, dz;
• /ɨ/ > /i/ before certain consonants;
• the Old Polish dual number marker -wa continues to be attached to verbs;
• Standard Polish /ɔ̃/ and /ɛ̃/ merged with /u/ and /a/ respectively, in most situations;
• certain instances of a > e;
• [mʲ] > [ɲ]

Masovian dialects also contain certain vocabulary that is distinct from the standard Polish language and shares common characteristics with the Kashubian language.